1. Field of the Invention.
This invention relates various unique features in a body supporting assembly and more paticularly to a portable body supporting assembly which can be disassembled into component parts for ease of handling and still yet more particularly to a three piece multi-positional fully portable, hospital bed assembly which is especially useful in the home health care environment and can be assembled, disassembled, and transported by a single individual.
2. Information Disclosure and Objects of the Invention.
Most convalescent and/or hospital beds are heavy, cumbersome, non-portable units since the mechanisms needed to adequately provide the multi-positional features required in today's state of the art beds are not conducive to light weight units.
Moreover, most of such beds were developed for and in the context of a hospital environment, and thus did not address such needs such as convenience and portability.
The reality of today's marketplace however, has substantially changed various requirements of the hospital supply industry and in particular, with the advent of home health care and various regulations restricting the length of stay in hospitals, patients have been encouraged if not required to convalesce in a non-hospital environment and more particularly, in the home, where convalescing equipment and supplies are generally rented, delivered and removed after a period of convalescence.
While the patient and/or individual convalescing in ones home may require technologically sophisticated equipment and supplies including multi-positional beds and the like, most suppliers of beds and/or body supporting assemblies which are multi-positional have not developed suitable portable devices.
Applicant herein and others have developed various multi-positional units for use in emergency situations and which may, for example temporarily be used as bed supporting assemblies, however, these do not fill the needs or the technological requirements demanded in today's hospital and/or health care environments, where a comfortable, long lasting, multi-positional bed is preferred.
Another attempt to date to fill this need has been made in connection with the typical unitary spring frame assembly which can be split into two sections and is generally held together by helical spring components. These units however do not provide for a spring deck assembly seperable from the frame assembly and in practice require two individuals for delivery and installation purposes. Moreover, these units, have not generally been provided with many of the features required by today's needs, including, for example, motor driven actuated controls to provide multiple positional assemblies. Furthermore, the addition of such features would be self-defeating, in that they would add weight and thus inhibit the portability feature of the unit.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a portable assembly which cures the problems associated with the known units including those recognized hereinbefore.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel multi positional body supporting assembly, which includes various unique components.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a multi-positional body supporting assembly which is portable and which may include automatic controls and actuators and/or motor driven assemblies to assist positional changes in the body supporting assemblies.
Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide a body supporting assembly which is fabricated of multiple components which are easily assembled and disassembled to aid in the portability of the unit.
Still yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a three component system wherein the spring deck is readily removed from the frame assembly and wherein the spring deck readily folds into a unit which can be transported by a single individual and wherein the frame assembly is readily divisible into two component parts which may also be transported by a single individual.